


the love

by elicul



Series: it ends or it doesn't [4]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Past Self-Harm, Recovery, Season/Series 06, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 11:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19062136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elicul/pseuds/elicul
Summary: Jake goes through the people he loves, one by one, and tells them the truth about how he's been doing.*It’s Amy who suggests he tell his friends. “You have all these people who love you,” she tells him one night when she’s not sure if he’s awake or not. "Broaden your support network, feel more connected to your own life, you know? Stop isolating.""You've been reading too many wikipedia articles."





	the love

**Author's Note:**

> title from the caitlyn siehl poem of the same name as the series. final installment

Jake needs to pee, but the thought of getting out of bed is overwhelming. He considers crawling to the bathroom, but he heaves a sigh and throws the blankets off of himself.

His medication is still new, so he doesn’t feel very different yet, but he has high hopes that the magic of Zoloft can do more for him than just make him dizzy. He wavers upon standing, placing one hand back down on the bed to keep his balance. The sensation passes and Jake heads to the bathroom.

He runs into Amy in the hall, and, living with someone, it’s very strange to feel as though you have ‘run into them,’ but Jake has been all but a ghost haunting their apartment for the last two months.

“Oh! You’re up.” Amy sounds excited.

“Just needed to pee.”

“Did you want to shower while you’re up? I was just reorganizing the books in the living room according to the Dewey Decimal system, but that can always wait, right? Dewey’ll still be there for me tomorrow, if you want a hand?”

“You’re offering to help me shower?”

“Well, kinda? I can run a bath and wash your hair, if you’d like. It always made me feel better, when my mom did it for me, as a kid.” 

Her suggestion is a little shy, but sincere, and so Jake accepts the help. 

The water is so warm it’s almost burning and it feels nice. He can actually feel his body, his arms, his legs, his skin. Amy kneels by the side of the tub and lazily stirs her hand around in the water. She also takes very warm showers. It’s one of the ways Jake knew they were compatible. But they’d never done this together before. 

He feels her eyes glance down at his hip every once in a while and then pointedly look away. She’s obviously curious about the scars she now knows are there, but she doesn’t ask. Doesn’t pry. He appreciates that, and, the next time her hand wanders there, he’ll try not to move it away. 

Jake feels like he’s floating as Amy massages conditioner into his hair. It is so comforting, so innocent and loving. She brushes it out and leans over to kiss his shoulder. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” he says almost dreamily. “Yeah, you were right.”

She smiles like she’s proud and he is so, so grateful that he has her. 

 

It’s Amy who suggests he tell his friends. “You have all these people who love you,” she tells him one night when she’s not sure if he’s awake or not. "Broaden your support network, feel more connected to your own life, you know. Stop isolating."

Sometimes, she starts to feel like she's talking to herself. And, though it may be frustrating, she knows it's not Jake's fault.

"You've been reading too many wikipedia articles."

She laughs, more out of relief than amusement. "It's mostly been webMD, actually."

"And it doesn't say that I'm dying?"

She leans down and kisses his forehead. "Nope. You're not dying."

"I'm not dying," he muses.

 

Rosa gets the rip the bandage approach. They’re out on the roof of the precinct. Gina’s statue has a pigeon on it. Jake isn’t sure if he should chase it away or not.

“Rosa, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Oh, um. Now. Yeah, great. Cool, cool, cool. I- uh, I have depression."

“I know,” she says with a causal half-shrug.

“Wh _aaa_ t? No. How?"

“I’m a detective, dummy. And anyway, one of my sister’s has bipolar, so I figured it out back when we met at the Academy."

“So, you knew?”

“Yeah, but I also knew you’d tell me when you knew, or when you were ready, so I didn’t say anything.” Rosa presses her lips into a line and looks down at the floor. She glances back up to say, “I tried to make sure you knew I was here for you."

“Well, thanks. I knew that, too."

He hugs her and she doesn’t pretend to hate every second of it. 

 

Charles requires a lighter hand. Charles suggest they meet in the men’s bathroom when Jake says he needs to tell him something. At first, Charles seems giddy. Probably hoping that Amy was ( _finally_ ) pregnant, but the atmosphere in the bathroom is tense. Jake steals a quick look at himself in the mirror and how uncomfortable he looks only makes his anxiety spike even more.

“This is in no way a reflection on you,” Jake starts, hands clapped together and pointing in Charles’ general direction. 

Jake thought he was off to a good start, had this whole thing scripted, but already, Charles is panicking. 

“Oh god, what did I do wrong? Tell me. No, damn, don’t tell me. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Charles, breathe, man. Let me talk.”

“Right, sorry.” He clenches his fists at his sides and stands up straighter. “Go on.”

“I just, I’m trying to… At the request of my therapist- I-“

Therapy was usually the butt of a joke with Jake, it was nice to hear it taken seriously. Charles softens. “Jake, buddy. You can talk to me. I promise not to flip out. Unless you need me to punch someone. I could certainly try. Is it Amy? Terry? Please don’t let it be Terry. I’m very fond of my right hand, it would absolutely shatter upon contact with Terry’s pectoral muscles...”

“I have depression,” Jake says, fast, to cut off the long-winded rant Charles was just beginning. "And I just wanted you to know.”

“Okay, so... you want me... to punch your feelings?”

Faking exasperation, Jake brings his hand up to his forehead. “Enough with the punching. No one’s punching anyone.”

“Alright. Your call.” Charles shrugs to appear nonchalant. Jake knows this will be something of an ongoing conversation with Charles, one with a few inappropriate comments and missteps, but also one with shared jokes and bone-crunching hugs. "Let me know if you change your mind?” 

“Sure thing. Absolutely.” Jake claps his hand down on Charles’ shoulder. "Thanks, Charles.” 

Charles pulls him into a hug.

 

Jake catches Amy in the elevator on their way down to lunch. They’d been planning to meet in the lobby, but the elevator gives them a moment to themselves that they didn’t know they needed.

“I’ve been getting a lot of hugs today.”

“You’re telling everyone today?”

“No. No, that would suck. But soon. So it doesn’t get out and become a rumor. I told Charles and Rosa.”

“That must’ve been hard.” Her eyes are played-up all sweet and sympathetic and he knows already that she’s going to offer him a hug because that’s just how her humor works, so he beats her to the punch and wraps his arms around her waist.

Her uniform is uncomfortable to lay his head against, but he nestles in anyway, smiling. There is nowhere that has felt as much like home to him as in her arms.

When the elevator doors open, they are still embracing. The security guard tells them to get a room.

 

Terry’s next, and although he’s a very anxious dude, he’s less anxious than Charles, so it should be easier. 

“Terry, I wanted to talk to you, but can you take off your stern supervisor eyebrows for just a second?”

“Supervisor eyebrows?”

“Yes, contrary to popular belief, I think most of your powers of authority come from your eyebrows and not your enormous stature and huge muscles, but that’s besides the point.”

Terry licks his thumb and wipes at his eyebrows before indicating that Jake could proceed. He rocks back and forth on his heels while Jake speaks, clutching a case file with both hands.

“I remembered something you once said to me, about therapy. And I’ve been going, recently, because I was feeling depressed, but mostly I wanted you to know how thankful I am that you were so open with me and…” He doesn’t get another word in as he’s pulled into his fourth hug of the day. 

There isn’t much to it, if you can ignore the weeping. Jake’s got a large tear stain on his shoulder and a promise that “it gets better.”

 

The last on the list is Captain Holt. Jake paces up and down the bullpen all morning, trying to work up the nerve to walk straight back into Holt’s office and tell him. Tell him because Holt has been like a father-figure to him for years now. Because he considers them to be friends. Because they’ve both been down together, like in Florida, miserable and missing their partners. Because he needs to put in a formal request for desk duty— his meds have been leaving him disoriented and dizzy in random bursts throughout his days. His psychiatrist says these will wear off as he adjusts to this level, but he knows he shouldn’t be out in the field if he is confused and light-headed without warning.

Holt’s always been a progressive kinda guy, but what if this is where the line is? Gay, black, police officer, all good. Mentally ill? The thought is enough to make Jake click his tongue disappointedly. Rosa looks up from her desk at the sound. She flicks her eyebrows up just a touch and Jake shakes his head. 

He can’t do this. If it doesn’t go well, he couldn’t handle the rejection. Or worse, the idea that Holt might think he can’t do his job anymore. Holt started out unsure of Jake’s competence, but the idea of regressing their relationship that far back…

He’s still completely himself, but he knows that things like this can change the way people look at him. No one has, so far, which should be enough to argue with the worry, but it’s not. 

Jake throws himself defeatedly into his chair and swivels across the room to talk to Charles.

“I can’t tell Holt,” he whisper yells. Charles shuts the file he’s looking at and leans in low and conspiratorially. “I’ll lose my job, and Holt’s respect, and did I mention, my job!”

“Okay, so?”

“So? That’s your big solution? _So?_ "

“Right, okay. So you lose the Captain’s respect. You’ve done that plenty of times, you’d survive it again.”

“True, true. Okay, but my job?!”

“You’d put in a transfer, or file against him for prejudice, or you’d quit, or get fired and find a new job. Maybe you could finally open your own pizzeria!”

“I mean, that would be cool…”

“All I mean is, whatever happens, you’d handle it. You’d have to. And it will be fine, because it’s Holt and he loves you, but even if it’s not, you’ll be okay.”

“Wow, Charles,” Jake lets out an impressed whistle as he leans back and returns his voice to a normal volume. “That was uncharacteristically insightful. How did you do that?"

Charles shrugs, leaning back over to his desk and picking up the file he’d been looking at. "Nikolaj gets himself all worked up sometimes, no idea where he gets it from, and sometimes the only way to calm him down is to agree with him, you know?”

Jake nods and scoots back to his desk. For a second, just a second, he thinks he can do this. And it’s enough to send him walking into Holt’s office before he scares himself out of it again.

The door is propped open, but Jake still knocks.

“What is it, Peralta?” Holt says without looking up from his laptop. He has one hand on the arm of his glasses, so he’s reading something long. A report, maybe, or an article. They’ve been working together for a few years now, and Jake is really starting to be able to read his Captain. 

“Oh, you know. Totally normal police business.” He hears his voice go up and panicked. “You don’t mind if I shut this, right? Right. Okay.”

Jake closes the door and stares at it for a second, steeling himself. Making light of this might only make matters worse, like he’s not serious about his career, or his own or his partner’s safety, or it might be misconstrued that the entire conversation is some sort of elaborate joke done in poor taste. He needs to calm down. 

“Sorry, sir. I just need a minute of your time,” he says. He already sounds steadier. If he can just manage to hold on to that, maybe, just maybe, this will all be okay.

“Alright,” Holt says slowly. “Come, sit down.” He gestures to the chair. 

Jake had meant to bring with him the form requesting a week of desk-duty, or the letter from his psychiatrist saying he was fit for work with some restrictions, or his diagnosis code typed on the bottom of a therapy receipt in case Holt did think he was kidding. He brought none of this in with him, though, has no papers to hide behind. 

Holt closes his laptop and steeples his hands before indicating Jake to continue. 

“Captain, I…” He clears his throat. “I have recently begun a new medication, and I am seeking your approval to be assigned desk-duty for the remainder of this week into early next while some side-effects are resolved.”

It’s as professional as Jake has ever sounded in his life, if a little stiff. 

Holt raises his eyebrows at the concise and polite request. With a flourish of his hand, he says “I see no reason to deny your request. Do you have the form?”

“At my desk.”

“Could you retrieve it so I can send it down to be filed?”

Jake leaves. Charles offers him a questioning look and a timid thumbs up from his desk. Jake isn’t sure exactly how he responds, but the way his face contorts, he probably just grimaced. He goes back into Holt’s office and closes the door behind him again.

Holt looks it over. “‘Dizziness, disorientation, and fainting’? Those are some very serious side effects. Are you sure this medication is appropriate for our line of work, Peralta?"

“Yes, sir. I need it, but the side effects should subside in the next few days, and I haven’t fainted, my doctor just wanted me to take that risk seriously.”

Holt's eyes scan across the paper, his lips moving as he reads it to himself. He glances up for just a moment, at one point, before continuing reading. “Still, I am concerned that a week will not suffice, shall we extended it ‘pro re nata’ so we don’t need to refile every time your dosage changes?”

“Sir?”

“It’s just, this type of medication, the doses are often being adjusted, which can reset the side effects.”

“‘This type of medication,’ sir?”

Holt sets the paper down and removes his glasses. “I know what citalopram treats. And your psychiatrist will likely adjust it in the coming months. I’m just looking to remove the extra step of having to fill out and file this form on every occasion you are not feeling well.”

Jake looks back at the door like he’s expecting the entire office to be standing there with a video-camera claiming this is the best prank they’d ever pulled. He and Holt are alone, though. And all he can manage to say is, “Sir?”

Holt sits back in his seat. “Would you like me to adjust the form?”

Jake nods and looks down at his hands like a child being lectured by their principal. 

“Peralta?” Jake looks up for only a moment before lowering his gaze again. "There's no shame in this. But, in return for my signature, I’m going to have to request that you be honest with yourself, and honest with me, as your commanding officer and as your… friend. If you need to ride the desk for a day or two, you do so. Regardless of how interesting or important a case comes in. Health and safety are not things to trifle with.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake stand up to leave the office. 

Somehow, though nothing went wrong in the interaction, Jake feels two inches tall. Just as he reaches for the door, Holt speaks again.

“One more thing." The Captain has already put his glasses back on and appears to be reading on his laptop again. He looks up at Jake over his glasses. “I hope the pain eases soon.”

Jake offers a quick, pained smiled. “Thank you, sir. Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> that'd be the end, folks.  
> questions, comments, what you might want to name your kid someday, and concerns all welcome


End file.
